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When Facebook revealed last year it was introducing facial recognition technology to help users tag their friends in photographs, they gave the functionality to North American users only.

Most of the rest of us found the option in our privacy settings was “not yet available”, which meant we could neither enable or disable it. We simply had to wait until Facebook decided to roll it out to our account.

Well, now might be a good time to check your Facebook privacy settings as many Facebook users are reporting that the site has enabled the option in the last few days without giving users any notice.

There are billions of photographs on Facebook’s servers. As your Facebook friends upload their albums, Facebook will try to determine if any of the pictures look like you. And if they find what they believe to be a match, they may well urge one of your Facebook friends to tag it with your name.

The tagging is still done by your friends, not by Facebook, but rather creepily Facebook is now pushing your friends to go ahead and tag you.

Remember, Facebook does not give you any right to pre-approve tags. Instead the onus is on you to untag yourself in any photo a friend has tagged you in. After the fact.

If this is something you’re uncomfortable with, disable “Suggest photos of me to friends” now.

* Under “Things others share” you should see an option titled “Suggest photos of me to friends. When photos look like me, suggest my name”.

* Unfortunately at this point you can’t tell whether Facebook has enabled the setting or not, you have to dig deeper..

* Click on “Edit settings”.

* If Facebook has enabled auto-suggestion of photo tags you will find the option says “Enabled”.

* Change it to “Disabled” if you don’t want Facebook to work that way.

* Press “OK”.

Earlier this year, Sophos wrote an open letter to Facebook. Amongst other things, we asked for “privacy by default” – meaning that there should be no more sharing of information without users’ express agreement (OPT-IN).

Unfortunately, once again, Facebook seems to be sharing personal information by default. Many people feel distinctly uncomfortable about a site like Facebook learning what they look like, and using that information without their permission.

Most Facebook users still don’t know how to set their privacy options safely, finding the whole system confusing. It’s even harder though to keep control when Facebook changes the settings without your knowledge.

The onus should not be on Facebook users having to “opt-out” of the facial recognition feature, but instead on users having to “opt-in”.

Yet again, it feels like Facebook is eroding the online privacy of its users by stealth.

If you are on Facebook and want to keep yourself informed about the latest news from the world of internet security and privacy you could do a lot worse than join the Sophos Facebook page where we regularly discuss these issues and best practice.

Unfortunately you won't know that they've done it, unless you keep your eyes peeled on your privacy settings. There's nothing you can do in preparation other than ask your Facebook friends to not tag you in photos. 😦

Mind you if your security settings are correct. For example you only add friends you know to your FB account and/or only those friends are in a security group that you have specified only friends can see you tagged in photos you are tagged in this doesn't create any more of a risk than your friends tagging you in their usual tagging ways.

Personally speaking only Friends can see photos of me so the facial recognition doesn't make a difference.

and when I say Friends i mean people I know and would allow to see my photos not random strangers.

I get annoyed when they update something and it automatically sets stuff back to 'enabled' even though its been disabled before (sometimes more than once). Like when they updated the profiles, way you viewed photos (pop up screen) etc. I agree it should be 'opt-in' not 'opt-out'

I cannot see any real problem with this. When tagging a photo it has always listed my friends names. If I have used that tag recently, it is near the top. All that is happening now is it is guessing who it might be to save time trying to find the name.

It's not automatically tagging, that's still up to your friends to do that bit. If you are tagged in a photo you didn't want to be tagged in, it is still your friends fault (or yours for doing something wrong).

Hmm, a bit of a knee-jerk reaction here I think? This option just suggests tagging you in your friends' photos – nothing more than they used to be able to do – (assuming you let them before). It doesn't suggest your name to strangers or anything like that. As far as I can make out this makes no difference with regard to levels of privacy. I have to say though – if someone doesn't recognise me in a photo they're not that much of a friend!

You do realise that Google owns something like 60% of all webservers and tracks users anyway + an enormous amount of traffic goes through Googles cloud and that doesn't even take into account pages that contain adds by Google.

Your being watched anyway.

Dont forget street view that knows where you live and logged any WiFi data you have floating about.

▌☠ ▌
Well as far as I am concerned they all have got right up to it, crossed it and tripped on it.
Question:
So is there still on way to stop people from tagging you. I mean is there a way yet to turn off all tagging. I don't think so is there ?

There is a privacy setting that allows you to control who sees photos tagged of you. There is no other privacy setting so if you don't want photos tagged at all then you need to remove tags as they are created.

"Most Facebook users still don't know how to set their privacy options safely, finding the whole system confusing. It's even harder though to keep control when Facebook changes the settings without your knowledge. "

Want to know how to feel more comfortable about your time online? Want to ensure that facebook keeps your privacy?

Yeah, I really don’t see a big problem with this, it’s seems more like FB is trying to encourage people to tag others in pictures instead of leaving them untagged … if random people were seeing my name as a choice to tag their pictures, that’s one thing, but when it’s in my circle of friends I don’t see a problem. It’s a suggestion, it’s not forcing them to tag you.

I find it helpful to think of FB as being two companies: the uber-friendly one that people use to keep in touch with each other, and the gigantic data maw in the background, Hoovering up every lick of personal information that people so unthinkingly share, correllating it, packaging it, and exposing it to an unknown number of advertisers and entities who have use of this data.

Facebook's customers will be lucky if all the data is used for is to sell them more crap. Anyone who doesn't think governments all over the world aren't drooling over this treasure trove – facial recognition? rlly? – is kidding themselves.

FB also stores everything you enter into your account forever yet nobody has ever pointed this out. If at one point you entered (or discussed) you were a say… diabetic on your profile then deleted this from your profile, you will always see diabetic supply ads.

1) Disabling the feature will NOT keep Facebook from doing face recognition. They will just not suggest your name for tagging. They first have to recognize you to know that you don;t want to be suggested, right? Facebook will still probably keep track of the images you are “recognized” in (and eventually share the information with govt. institutions on request).

2) You are not “safe” because you don’t use a real image of yourself as a profile picture (I am using a self created manga face). As soon as your friends start tagging you in images, Facebook will learn how you look like.

The best way to show Facebook that you don’t like that feature is to NO LONGER tag ANYONE in ANY image.

It’s annoyed me no end that facebook rarely advertises its changes.
they change, we scream, they back off, and then they sneak it back in later.
I’m feeling like the frog in the proverbial ever increasing temperature water.

And I hear that it’s actually against Facebook’s policies and rules to tag people without their permission….

Keep up the good fight! (it was your site that instructed me how to set my privacy settings when I first got on Facebook. Even then I knew not to take any suggestions from them.

I just checked mine and had some friends check theirs, all are set to disabled by default. Maybe it was just a hiccup when they allowed the feature to be used? Wouldn’t be the first time it was just some teething problems.

Hmmmm! I like this rather fasidious idea! upload a bunch of pictures of random people and put your name under them. Keep them guessing. It’s kind of like anyone who forces me to fill out login in information to access some white paper or other thing. They don’t get anything but crap data. E-mail address? noneof@yourbusiness.com You insist on my name to post? I don’t think so. Just do the same thing with FB.

I love how people sign up for a FREE SERVICE and the complain when people offer said FREE SERVICE make a change. You don’t pay for it, it’s an optional service that YOU signed up for. Facebook didn’t sell it to you or force you to sign up.

There is an EXTREMELY simple way to protect your privacy when it comes to Facebook, it’s called deleting your account!

It's surprisngly hard to delete your account once you've signed up. And even a free service has a duty to inform it's users of changes. This particular one doesn't bother me overly much, but I don't like having features I may or may not agree with being enabled without any information on said changes being sent my way.

Regardless of the service being offered, users should be told when changes are made.

Seems like it. I deleted mine – I thought, but when I rejoined, my info was reinstated, so it was kept in the electronic ether of a data base, somewhere. If they want to know about you, they probably have that info already; why worry.

I agree whole heartedly. Facebook is a business and a company. You, as a client, are not required to use, participate, or join facebook. For example, if your neighborhood homeowners association has a lawn cutting company and you don't like how they cut your grass, you dont have to use them!!! If you dont like how mcdonalds dips their burgers in fat and fake burger juice to enhance the taste, You dont have to eat there!!! Isnt america great ? You dont have to use Facebook!

I just covered my camera, under no circumstances am I interested in allowing my facial scan to be held by facebook or anyone else. Do people not realise the long term implications of a data base like this, your privacy is gone.

Wait, does it really select randomly floating pictures and suggest them to random friends? Or is does this just refer to suggesting tags on pictures that friends upload? This article implies the former, which would be quite disturbing, but are we sure it’s not just the latter? If it’s just suggesting my name when friends upload photos of me, I’m OK with that (though I certainly wouldn’t fault anyone for disagreeing), but I certainly wouldn’t want every photo I happen to be in the background of being suggested to anyone who knows me.

Face***k simply doesn’t get it. They push new apps and features on their users without their permission or knowledge, yet claim to keep their users’ privacy in their best interests.

How about…oh, you know…INFORMING your users when a new feature or app is about to be released, then get their feedback on what they like or don’t like about it. So far, I’ve had to reset my privacy setting a minimum of 10 times just in the last few months alone because Face***k pushed something on everyone that they didn’t like.

I know, I know…that would make far too much sense if they actually had any semblance of customer service…

Eric Schmidt said 'If you do something you wouldn't like others to know about, perhaps you shouldn't be doing it'
Usage of social networking sites equals sharing your personal data. If you don't want to loose privacy, don't use social media. Easy, isn't it 🙂

Has no-one else noticed that the security option only prevents FB from recommending the tag to friends, It doesn't stop them looking through your images and using the facial ID technology anyway for their own means. Especially as the T&Cs state that any images you upload or are uploaded give FB full rights to the image to do with as they like.

You upload your photos to a system with half a billion users on it, you tag yourself and others on it, you share these photos about on that system to users who's privacy settings and priorities are different from your own and that is all fine and dandy?

But the instant Facebook uses a facial recognition technology, that simply looks at your already published photos then uses them as a basis for further tagging of newly uploaded photos, that is an invasion of privacy!?

Its an application that looks at your photos and does a compare that's all… I'm sure people can dream up all manner of nefarious ways of abusing this technology, but that, in itself, is only relevant if you, as a user, aren't already sharing hundreds of photos of yourself willingly on an open public network! You don't need conspiracy theories of facial recognition programs knocking up false ID's of you or identity theft of any kind, when everyone is willingly throwing their photos up for all to see in the first place.

Hell just signing up to post this comment, you've willingly given away your email address and / or your Twitter / WordPress account names. I doubt a program that can spot you in a crowd of friends on a photo you're already sharing out is actually any worse.

Right, you all realize that Facebook has an option that prevents ANYONE from tagging you in a picture right? It is in your privacy settings. If you don’t want to be tagged in a picture, you can prevent it from EVER happening. Contrary to what the author states, you don’t have to stare at your newsfeed all day waiting to untag yourself. However, there is no provision in Facebook that prevents any user from uploading your picture and labeling it with your name. The picture however, if your privacy settings so dictate, will not be linked back to you. This is NO different than someone seeing you in a public park, snapping a picture if you, uploading it to their website and slapping your name underneath.
Just my 2 cents

Storm in a tea cup. It's a useful tool, and one that I've had access to in the UK since at least last November when I upload photos from a charity expedition – it saved me having to manual tag the vast majority of over 1000 photos containing up to 50 people in them.

If you were so concerned about this why the article now? Or just a slow news day?

I checked the settings and since I already have photos as visible by friends only the enabled photo tag recognition will only suggest tagging to "friends only" – I am okay with that – so why publish that it is everywhere when it really isn't – should research and understand Facebook privacy polices better so your articles are more accurate – I was misled here – thank you.

This is all a bit over the top because the facial recognition software actually isn’t that good. It only guesses that about half the photos of the same person in a particular album might be the same and then it does not know who it is so you have to do it manually. I think we might begin to worry if the software improves!

Aside from the fact that this seems to me to be an incredibly minor intrusion at best, I once again find myself amazed at the uproar such features cause. If you don’t feel comfortable with Facebook sharing your information, don’t give them your information. Or don’t use Facebook at all.

Hundreds of new and useless options and FB never gave the users a lousy dislike button-it's what everyone wants and expects(hundreds of likes liked by at least 5k ppl about the dislike button and how they want it)…

See what Wikipedia has to say on face recognition, especially Notable uses and deployments and Additional Uses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_recognition_s…
BTW: U.S. Department of State operates one of the largest face recognition systems in the world with over 75 million photographs that is actively used …

Deleting your Facebook account doesn't actually do anything either. All the data you had is saved on their servers for whatever they want to do with it basically.
Like if you uploaded a bunch of photos, someone else uses it as their profile picture and you then delete it from your album, it still exists. All that's happened is that it no longer shows in your album, but it's never actually deleted at all.
And Facebook is allowed to gather information from outside sources, meaning that if you've been on Facebook once and "removed" your account, they can still gather information on you as they like, and there's little you can do about it.

well, that's pretty much the way it is on the internet period. Once a picture is uploaded to the internet anywhere it's practically on the internet forever. Unless it doesn't get cached and caught by someone else.

I think the reason many FB users get so worried about things like this is because the majority of their connections, their 'friends' are not actually friends but acquaintances, big difference. People they went to high school or college with, someone they might've worked with at some point, dated years ago, knew from wherever. By connecting with these people they connect these people with their family, present day co workers, job contacts and finally their few actual friends through themselves – unless they turn on every privacy setting possible which basically makes the site useless. It's like a spider web that lumps everyone and everything together from one person.

Really, it all comes down to how private or rather, cautious, a person you are. I'm extremely cautious in situations where I know anyone can look in and see personal info. In person I'm rather forth coming, but I've always been cautious on the internet. I indulge very little personal information. To many it's obviously no problem. Well, to each their own. As for the data mining and Feds, Google etc gathering every bit of info that ever reaches the web on people – well that's just common sense – and if you are a general user (not someone with hyper stealth skills who knows about all those proxy thingamajigs etc) of the internet, that info is already known by them.

Maybe if people limited their “Friends” to actual friends they would not need tagging at all. I did not think it was a good idea in the first place and I know very well what my friends and family look like and do not need help to recognize them. The issue is really the fact that Facebook does not provide these updates as options to chose but as features that have to be shut off. I realize we use the software free but he is making a fortune because of his users. Without us no company would give him advertising dollars. He needs us or the ads will be pulled.

I spent nearly 20 years in software development and Facebook is one of the worst pieces of trash I have ever seen. It is simply not done to keep making changes without finding out if the user wants or needs it. It is not done to put out an upgrade without testing it to make sure it is not breaking other parts of the software. There are more bugs in this thing than an ant hill. It is an exercise in deep frustration to locate a way to report bugs and the means changes all the time. I cannot determine if the creator has no actual training in software design and development or if he just likes to play around at our expense. Probably both. He clearly has an overweening sense of self-importance. I guess he models himself on Jobs and not Gates.

Why use it? While I am comfortable learning how to use new software and enjoy setting it up to see how it works my family and friends are barely tech literate. It took a lot to get them to use Facebook and I do not want to lose my contacts. It was not the piece of constantly changing trash when I started to use it that it is to day.

thanks for the tip; i had actually disabled it before but like so many other "privacy settings" when another feature got rolled out it defaulted back to enabled and i wasn't aware. 🙂

now what i'm interested in is HOW TO DISABLE PEOPLE BEING ABLE TO ADD ME TO GROUPS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION…..grr (sad face). i can disable being suggested for tags, i can disable being checked into places by others…but i can't keep myself from beign added to groups in which i have no interest in being a member?? think about it – all it takes is for one angry, vindictive person to add you to a group called "Child Molesters Anonymous" or "Crack Cocaine is GREAT" – no matter how quickly you remove yourself or Facebook shuts it down – and for one of your friends to see that you're now a member of the group. bad news all around.

You people are not very smart to use Facebook anyway. Giving up all of your private thoughts and joining in some selfish social admiration display like rats in a little cage.

You link yourself to people for popularity missions and their bad character is now tied to you. The government doesn't need to make a database of you – you are doing it for them, tying in everyone you talk to or will tolerate the actions of (like drug users).

Every breach of privacy you moan but continue to use it because your friends do. Those are called followers and sheeple. Social Media is a way to make you comfortable and be sold to, keep going to work and making money chasing that dream while photoshopping your images.

Change all the settings you want, it doesn't change the fact that you are generating a succinct link and interests wheel about you that will be used in marketing and tracking if needed. Dopey, dopey, netizens.